


Now What?

by ckret2



Series: Red Sprite & the Golden Ones (Rodorah slowburn oneshots) [6]
Category: Godzilla (2014), Godzilla - All Media Types, Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bittersweet, Character Study, Ghidorah does a vibe check with himself, Internal Conflict, M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 00:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20826074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: Ghidorah has decided, at least for now, to stay on Earth with Rodan... and immediately realizes they’ve gotabsolutely no idea whatsoeverwhat that actually means they’re going todowith the rest of their life.





	Now What?

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of an ongoing series of Rodorah one-shots. If you haven’t read the others, here’s all the context you need: Ghidorah made a spur-of-the-moment decision to yield to Godzilla in order to go help the injured Rodan even though they’d been winning, and they definitely did not plan things out any farther than that.
> 
> This fic was originally posted on July 4 on tumblr.

The red sprite had been so much more graceful just a few hours ago.

They watched from high above as he struggled toward home. His flaps were unsteady and irregular, and he rose and fell as he flew. Every once in a while, he couldn’t seem to catch the wind under his wings just right and would begin to plummet; and they would dive toward him before he frantically steadied out, and they would return to their previous altitude. Why had they dove? What had they thought they were going to do to help him? If he did go into a dead fall, could they catch him without falling, too?

But he didn’t. And onward they continued to his volcano.

They wondered what, exactly, they were going to do when they got there.

Every few seconds, that was the question that ran through their heads: _now what_? Second snapped it at First, Third wondered it with the slowly-growing glee of someone who was getting to ask that question for the first time in his life, and First let it echo through him with the hollow bafflement of the deeply, truly lost. Now what. Now what.

Yes, they’d resolved to keep the red sprite. At least temporarily, while they tried to reach a true consensus on what to do with him. (They _had_ to reach a consensus. They didn’t hold votes—two out of three was insufficient when the winners were also living in the head of the loser. Every decision had to be unanimous. Even if the dissenter has to be harangued into agreeing with the rest.)

But even in the short term—what in the universe did it mean to “keep” him? Were they going to follow him around while he did whatever he wanted? Or were they perhaps going to do whatever _they_ wanted and make _him_ follow them around? That was, after all, what they’d done the past couple of days. It was pleasant enough, but also predicated on their _knowing_ what they wanted to do. Yesterday, what they’d wanted to do was destroy the planet and then leave. That plan didn’t mesh very well with the idea of keeping the red sprite in any capacity. What did they want to do now that destroying the world wasn’t an option? _What were they going to do with their life_ if they weren’t destroying the world? _Now what?_

Long flights around the equator together? Chucking rocks at the little king and flying off before he could retaliate? Curling up with the red sprite in his volcano and sleeping for a few centuries? Sparring with each other? Figuring out how to devastate half the planet while leaving the parts the red sprite liked untouched? Pretending they were capable of mating? Relearning how to _cuddle?_

What were they going to _do_ with him?

_Now what?_

It was all well and good to say they were going to keep him, but it was going to change _everything_ about how they lived. The very structure of their life did not allow for a single possession. 

They wondered if they even _could_ learn a new way to live. The more time they spent on one planet, the smaller it felt. How long until this rock got suffocating? How long could they _really_ sit on this world before it began to feel like perching in a marble? 

Maybe they were too old to learn a new way to live.

Maybe, because of the way they were made—the way they’d been _built_—they were only physically capable of living one way.

The red sprite wavered; they dove toward him again, and drew back with a rumble like thunder once he stabilized. Their heart sped up whenever he looked like he was going to fall. How strange. Something they’d have to get used to.

They had lived the same way for eons. This was only day one of living a different way. They would figure out _now what_, and everything else, in time.

And if they couldn’t figure it out, it was never too late to give up and leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Original post on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/186054988757/now-what). Feel free to reblog/comment there. (Or comment here!)


End file.
